TheChek News Flow

Michigan contest will measure how far left the party is willing to go in the industrial heartland and beyond

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.—To hear establishment Democrats tell it, Republicans are as excited as progressives about the prospect of Abdul El-Sayed winning a pivotal two-person Democratic U.S. Senate primary in this battleground state on Aug. 4.

The former local public-health official holds left-wing policy views that could turn off swing voters in November’s election, making the GOP eager to run against him, according to his opponent, four-term Congresswoman Haley Stevens.

El-Sayed is arguably the front-runner and has proven himself to be a stronger political athlete than Stevens, quick on his feet and social-media savvy. She describes herself as a workhorse competing against a show horse.

The primary will be the first major electoral test of the party’s direction since the implosion of Graham Platner’s Senate campaign in Maine, a debacle that could make some Democrats anxious about nominating another candidate who has never held elected office.

If El-Sayed wins, it would be a sign that the party’s leftward shift is taking place in the industrial heartland and not just in coastal and deeply blue enclaves. That makes the contest perhaps the most consequential battle yet between progressives and moderates in setting the party agenda.

The primary encapsulates virtually every division unsettling the party: Establishment vs. outsider. Pro-Israel vs. anti-Israel. Moderate vs. progressive. About the only thing missing is a generational clash, only because both candidates are in their early 40s.

El-Sayed is endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and the United Auto Workers. Stevens is backed by Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, former U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, some unions, pro-Israel groups and Emilys List, which supports abortion-rights candidates.

In an interview, El-Sayed dismissed criticism from Stevens and other establishment figures who say he is a risky bet for the party in a contest that Democrats almost certainly need to win to gain control of the Senate in November.

“It’s risky to put up a candidate who does not actually have clear positions on most of the issues that everybody wants,” he said. “It’s risky to tell people that the best thing we can do with our tax dollars is send them abroad to drop bombs on other people rather than to invest here.”

Michigan Republicans are poised to nominate former Rep. Mike Rogers, who narrowly lost the state’s 2024 Senate race. The seat is being vacated by Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat not seeking a third term.

El-Sayed’s rise comes as Democrats remain deeply divided about how to start winning national elections again. One wing asserts battleground districts and states are won by wooing independent voters with moderation, while another thinks voters are eager for dramatic change at a time of widespread skepticism in government and widening economic disparity.

President Trump won Michigan in 2016 and 2024, and successful Democrats in the state have tended to emphasize centrism. That includes Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who beat El-Sayed in a 2018 gubernatorial primary by 22 percentage points.

El-Sayed said he is convinced that voters are looking for fresh faces and the removal of those currently in office.

“They’re pissing mad, and they don’t think anybody’s listening to them,” he said. “So it’s not surprising to me that the people who have been in positions where they’re supposed to have shown up and listened and haven’t, that those people are going to be ushered out.”

A Muslim whose parents migrated from Egypt, El-Sayed grew up in the Detroit area. He graduated from the University of Michigan, where he was on the lacrosse team, then earned a Columbia University medical degree and a doctorate in public health at Oxford University.

El-Sayed supports Medicare-for-all, free child care and has campaigned with Hasan Piker, an influencer who has been accused of antisemitism. He calls Israel’s actions in Gaza “genocide” and wants to see the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency abolished.

Stevens, who declined an interview request, holds views less overtly progressive. She supports a healthcare public option, favors removing Social Security’s payroll tax cap so earnings above $184,500 would be taxed, and wants to see paid family leave for workers nationalized.

While polls have suggested El-Sayed is the front-runner, that was before the July 5 exit from the race of state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. She tried to cut a middle path between El-Sayed and Stevens but struggled to compete against his antiestablishment brand and raise money.

A private poll promoted by Steven’s campaign this past week showed her in a statistical tie with El-Sayed when primary voters were asked about the two-person contest, with about a fifth of the electorate undecided. El-Sayed said it was biased against him and he remains the front-runner.

El-Sayed has support among the growing Democratic Socialists of America movement, which Trump and other Republicans have branded as “communism” and are using as an attack line against all Democrats.

El-Sayed bristled when asked how he relates to DSA. “I’m not technically or practically DSA,” he said.

Still, there is overlap. Grand Rapids resident Nikolai Pieniazek, a 34-year-old regulatory analyst in the personal-care industry, was among those who attended an El-Sayed gathering in a local park before Tuesday’s debate here with Stevens.

“Younger voters don’t think of socialism as a boogeyman,” said Pieniazek, who was wearing a Bernie Sanders baseball cap. He said he’s working for El-Sayed’s campaign because Stevens is supported by the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee, corporate interests and Schumer.

A super political-action committee affiliated with Aipac, the United Democracy Project, has been the biggest spender on advertising in the primary, according to AdImpact data. Groups backing Stevens have swamped El-Sayed on overall ad spending as well.

El-Sayed said that he isn’t against capitalism if there are sufficient guardrails. According to him, the U.S. is in the midst of “nonfunctional capitalism that creates trillionaires and makes it harder for every person to create basic wealth.” He said he would rather have an economy that “makes a thousand millionaires than one billionaire.”

The Rhodes scholar cites economist Adam Smith in making his case about the need for more regulation and taxation, before adding: “If you want capitalism to actually work, maybe stop paying attention to Wall Street and start paying attention to Main Street.”

While El-Sayed has strong support among younger voters, there are also older progressives who are drawn to him. Bev Clark, a 68-year-old retiree, was among roughly 250 people packed into a church basement in suburban Detroit on Wednesday evening.

“The government has been stuck in the mud, and I don’t hear Haley Stevens saying anything that will change that,” she said. “El-Sayed is independent in his thinking. He’s really dynamic.”

Speaking to Clark and others in the church basement, El-Sayed started with his campaign’s signature mantra that suggests he and those helping him are in the process of “getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets, and finally guaranteeing Medicare for all.”